Paul Nicholls pumped his arms to the Aintree skies, his binoculars almost
taking off the heads of nearby punters.

It had been another amazing and dramatic edition of the Grand National, one for the ages, tinged with desperate sadness and utter ecstasy. For the great National Hunt trainer of his age, the emotions just tumbled out uncontrollably.

This, after all, was supposed to be the race he couldn’t win. Nicholls had won Gold Cups and King Georges in profusion; he effectively owned the trainers’ title, but the National had been preposterously cruel to him.

Fifty-two times, the master of Ditcheat had saddled horses in the National before Saturday without any luck at all. Only twice had he ever had a horse in the frame.

The only thing that could be said for his training record in the big race, he reckoned, was that it was better than when he rode here as a jockey. “Never got around once,” he laughed.

A couple of years back, Nicholls had also told me that his extraordinary lack of success in the race didn’t really bother him.

What a fib! After the fantastic, breathless finish which saw his heroic grey Neptune Collonges just manage to get his snout in front of poor old Sunnyhillboy, his reaction quite belied that throwaway comment. Nobody could have looked more thrilled.

Part of the reason was that he realised he had just won the trainers’ title for yet another year after a magnificent end-of-season battle with Nicky Henderson. Indeed, he had told his rival after Henderson had saddled three winners before the National: “You’ve won the title — I’m dead and buried now.”

But the main reason was that this was the day it must have dawned on him that his career c.v really could not do without an unforgettable exclamation mark like this. He must have known that, just as

A P McCoy felt after winning a couple of years ago, his reputation as the finest of his generation had just been beautifully embossed. There is nothing like winning the biggest race of all.

It will go down as another tragically-scarred National but nobody needed to tell Nicholls about the sheer sadness following the death of Synchronised and According to Pete as he protested almost helplessly: “It’s the tragic side of the sport but I don’t know how many millions watch the race. If they didn’t like the race, they wouldn’t watch.”

This is the brutal truth. We watch because it remains one of the most exhilarating spectacles in sport and Saturday's extraordinary finale with Daryl Jacob pumping Neptune Collonges to the narrowest victory in the race’s history, plus all the other assorted dramas which surrounded the occasion, demonstrated exactly why it is such compelling viewing. “I didn’t even know where the line was,” admitted Jacob, so blind was his drive for glory.

Neptune Collonges was, Nicholls had always believed, a class act. Indeed, he said, if it had not been for the exploits of his more-lauded stablemates Kauto Star and Denman, the 11 year-old would probably have won the Gold Cup by now.

Yet he was incredibly close to not being run at all by his owner John Hales, who had watched another very successful horse of his, One Man, die on this very course in 1998. Hales admitted that his family had been split over whether they should put Neptune Collonges through this brutal race. His wife, particularly, had serious concerns.

Indeed, Hales, a successful businessman in the toy trade who had hit the jackpot making Teletubbies dolls, was less interested in the incredible finish than the fact that the horse had simply cleared the last fence. “My thought when he went over was 'Thank God — he’s home.

“I had to persuade the family that he had earned his right to run in the race.” Nicholls could only be thankful that Hales had managed to talk everybody round.

For this was a historic National, a fitting epic as the last one perhaps ever to be screened live by the BBC. It all felt a touch bizarre to be in Liverpool when most of the city’s sporting heart seemed to be camped in north London. Imagine it; the National and 'The Derby’ on the same afternoon, as they were putting it here.

Not that you would have known that Everton and Liverpool were doing battle at Wembley as thousands of punters milled around in their Scouse finery at lunchtime, most happily oblivious to the fare being screened on just a few TVs dotted around the course.

Every now and then, a roar would emerge from the jam-packed Hedgehunter and Red Rum bars to betray the presence of the other great Merseyside sporting ritual.

Once again, the courage of the horses and their riders was truly something to behold.

In the Aintree Hurdle, Ruby Walsh’s fall on the favourite Zarkandar brought a collective wince from thousands. It was an appalling fall for both horse and jockey, Zarkandar hitting the top of the hurdle, falling on to his neck and then rolling its full weight over the stricken jockey.

That both managed to walk away from this fall seemed miraculous. It was a blessed relief to see Walsh stagger to his feet and walk somewhat gingerly across the course. Like his weighing room colleagues, the master jockey seems so indestructible that you could almost have imagine him insisting that he would still ride in the big race, but it was a relief to learn that he had been stood down for the day with concussion by the racecourse doctor.

It cost him his fancied ride in the big race but, then, on another day Walsh might have found himself actually missing out on the winning ride because Nicholls admitted that he had tried his best to persuade his stable jockey to plump for Neptune Collonges rather than the Willie Mullins-trained On His Own.

That was racing. That was the National. Hales reflected afterwards how J P McManus, owner of the tragic Synchronised, came up to him afterwards to congratulate him on the victory. “And he didn’t even tell me he had lost his own horse,” Hales reflected with real sadness. “That’s the highs and lows of this sport. So extreme.”